


A Tale That Never Was

by myscribblings



Series: Far Travels [4]
Category: Doctor Who, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24013675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myscribblings/pseuds/myscribblings
Summary: United in their hatred of one man. Or an infinite number of them. All because of an incident with a madman with a box.This came about because of an ask on Twitter for a "Valkorion on the TARDIS AU". It takes place in a story called Dark Side City, part of the Far Travels series, in which Vaylin has traveled to an alternate universe much like a Film Noir or a hard-boiled detective story, only to meet versions of Arcann and Senya there. Then, in this story, things get even stranger.
Series: Far Travels [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1699093
Kudos: 1





	A Tale That Never Was

This is a story of the last of the Time Lords, and a monster from another existence.  
It is also a story that never happened.  
It is little known, but the Doctor has not always gone by that name, over their many lives. It is a name they chose for themselves, but some incarnations took others. Some signs point to an existence before the name, but no one now knows the truth for certain. The War Doctor never took a name at all, that was simply what he was called by others. In one possible future that hopefully will never be, their darkest thoughts were released to take another form, becoming the Valeyard.  
And once, a predator came upon them while they were recreating themselves, and they became Valkorion.  
***  
He stood, confused. His senses had always been far-reaching and acute, but nothing like this. He could feel the universe revolving around him, the movements of the smallest particles to the great arm of the galaxy he stood in. The body itself was quite strong, not like his past choices for hosts but powerful in its own way, and he felt his renewed youth. However, these were the least of this form’s gifts.  
The knowledge. That was its greatest boon to him, and it flooded him, paralyzing him in place for long hours, then days. He could feel each second, and also knew that time was irrelevant to him now.  
After his apparent destruction, he had drifted for an indeterminate, almost losing himself in the spaces between universes. Now, though, he had once again taken the body of a god, as was only appropriate.  
When he had recovered from the shock, he looked down at himself and chuckled. “So, a new body, at last.”  
He spent some time alone on this vessel, this TARDIS, apparently, examining both the many new memories and the ship itself. Time and relative dimensions in space. What an absurd name, but it was to be expected. This Doctor was an absurd member of an absurd species, Valkorion now understood quite well.  
A species that had the power to grant themselves true immortality, that could live forever, or close enough by any reasonable measure, and they chose mortality. They would live for centuries, still, but they limited themselves to a paltry few lives.  
All their power, and they chose non-interference instead of ruling the universe, lacking the wills to perfect the common clay nature had given them. Such limited creatures they were.  
He supposed he should be grateful, really. The fools had squandered themselves, and now he stood in their place.  
He could go anywhere, anywhen. Even to places that should not exist, because he could see beyond what even the Doctor knew. As powerful as he was, he would still need more to be complete.  
He smiled as he chose his destination. It suited both his goals, and his desire for revenge.  
***  
The TARDIS took her instructions from the creature that had replaced her Doctor, knowing she would follow them. After all, she already had.  
She also knew what would happen. It did not make her happy. She was incapable of taking joy in its suffering, or anything else for that matter.  
Truly.  
***  
Senya Tirall’s Journal:

The woman my son was allowing to live downstairs still glared at me when she thought I couldn’t see. I’d watched her from the stage, and every now and then, for a moment or two, she seemed more at peace, almost serene, hearing my voice.  
She was a puzzle.  
Usually, though, we stayed clear of one another, which seemed to suit us both fine. That night, I left the stage early and went to sit with her. I had felt a chill all night, seeping down into my bones, and something told me she was feeling it, too.  
Something terrible had happened, or would soon, and I didn’t care to be alone.  
She looked up from her table as I approached, the anger showing in her strange eyes and the set of her jaw, but then she set it aside and let out a sight. “What do you want, Senya?”  
I glanced around the floor. The band had picked up the slack I had left. “Just to talk.”  
She waved me to a seat. “Well, you’re the boss’s mother, I suppose I can’t stop you.”  
She’d said something like that when we’d first met, too, even though he hadn’t told her who I was to him. I pulled out a chair and sat down, and got straight to the point. “Why do you hate me?”  
She seemed ready for the question. “I…”  
That was when we both heard the sound, from above the club, where my son keeps his offices. We were on our feet sprinting in a moment, and I had my pistol in hand as I threw open the door.  
***  
Tony Tirall’s Journal:

I was back in my office over the club, doing some paperwork. The life of a private eye isn’t all glamor and adventure, after all. In fact, it almost never is, and there are bills to send and bills to pay. I actually find it relaxing to do something so mundane.  
I had a sudden feeling that the night wouldn’t stay that way, and then heard it. A strange sound, rising and falling, and the the thing appeared.  
A police box. I only knew what it was because it was labeled at the top, but somehow I knew what it meant.  
Suddenly, my mother and the woman from another universe had come to my office. Senya said, “Tony? Is anything wrong?” She noticed the box. “What?”  
I found myself saying, “Don’t worry, Mother, I’ve heard of this being. The Doctor is an enemy to the things we fight, I’m sure it will be fine.”  
None of that was true, though. I hadn’t heard of such a being, had I? Where had that come from?  
Vaylin examined the thing and said, “Tony, I think you’re wrong, and we should run.”  
That might have been a good idea, but I hesitated for a moment, and then it was too late.  
What came out of the blue box was not some savior, but a horror out of my past. One I thought well and truly destroyed. He looked at me and smiled.  
“Hello, Son.”  
***  
Vaylin’s Journal:

He looked us over, a hungry smile on his face, standing in front of that absurd blue box. “Wife. Daughter. Good, you are all here.”  
He was different, somehow. He continued to speak, but I tuned out his droning, closed my eyes for a moment.  
I could sense the electrical pulses of two distinct hearts.  
“You are no husband of mine, monster,” Senya said.  
He chuckled. “Indeed? Well, I suppose it makes little difference.”  
Anthony had drawn a pistol. He wasn’t ready for a confrontation with what he thought was standing in front of him, but he was still going to try.  
I’d been wrong. He was more like my brother than I thought.  
He said, “What have you done with the Doctor, Valkorion?”  
I looked over at him. “Doctor? What are you talking about?”  
He seemed momentarily confused himself, stammering, “That’s not the question I was expecting.”  
“Oh, he means the former inhabitant of my vessel. A pathetic fool who wasted his existence for a race of similar fools. I’m honestly surprised you know anything of the subject.”  
Senya was just as confused as I was, and said, “So am I.”  
“Well, regardless, the Doctor is no longer with us. I am now the emperor of all space and time, and you would do well to kneel before me.”  
Obviously, I wasn’t about to let that go.  
***  
Excellent, he thought. The combined knowledge of so many lives, his own and the Doctor’s, gave him insight beyond either. He was so close, and they would help him to unlock infinity.  
It was their connection to him that would do it. That he had taken the few scant decades to pass on his power, even in the body of another. With him as the beginning, they were a step into the future, one that with the TARDIS could be extended forever in an inductive loop.  
He then realized something, about this universe, and about these doubles of his “family”. There was no connection between them, no bonds of the Force creating the power he would have stolen. It was unnecessary, it might even make things easier, but it would have been a delicious bonus. He frowned at them, saying, “I must say, though, you are a disappointment.”  
Vaylin spoke first. “Yes, ‘Father’. Disappointment? You should get used to it.”  
Impossibly, she stepped up to him, lightning wreathing her fists, flowing from her eyes, and blasted him off his feet and back into the TARDIS.  
How? There was no power there, she was an ordinary woman in this bland universe!  
He had to remind himself again that it made no difference.  
It had been a surprise, but unfortunately for all of them, it placed him exactly where he wanted to be.  
***  
Tony Tirall’s Journal:

I had hoped to keep him talking, I had reinforcements on the way, but of course Vaylin had acted without thinking.  
I don’t blame her, a few years ago I would have tried to push the metal fist he had “given” me through his face, too. I just wish she could have waited another minute or two.  
But maybe this was a matter to be settled between family.  
Another thought I could tell wasn’t mine.  
She’d already gone into the machine he arrived in, and Mother was following her before I rounded the desk. I don’t know why, but I had an idea of what to expect. I started to warn Senya, but saw her expression. She was ready to rip his throat out with her bare hands, if she had to.  
I shrugged and went through the door.  
***  
Vaylin’s Journal

I walked through the door and couldn’t help it. I stopped and gaped at what I saw. What was this? How was this inside that tiny blue box?  
And there was a voice, a voice I could not quite understand, speaking into my mind.  
He stood there, next to the console, waiting. He didn’t seem concerned.  
Pathetic was what I thought as I blasted him again.  
Or tried to. Nothing happened.  
Anthony and Senya charged in, and they didn’t wait any longer, pulling the triggers on their weapons. Again, nothing.  
Valkorion chuckled again. “Apparently, this space exists in temporal grace. You weapons won’t work.”  
Anthony stepped forward and, over the loud ticking noise, said, “I see. I may have found a loophole.”  
“What?”  
And then just punched the mighty Valkorion in the gut with all the mechanical power of his metal fist.  
It was beautiful. If we weren’t busy, I think I would have shed a tear.  
***  
Senya’s Journal

I almost smiled as the creature with Valkorion’s face curled up around Anthony’s fist. I knew that Vaylin was from another universe, so I guess I shouldn’t have surprised by any of this. This man was like her, from a place where I was his wife, Tony his son, Vaylin his daughter.  
I felt sorry for anyone that had this monster as family.  
I heard ribs crack, and was about to step up to help finish him off. Maybe with the butt of my gun, or if that didn’t work, I had a sash I could probably make a garrote in a pinch. I wasn’t going to let him walk away.  
That’s when I felt it. We had stepped into his trap. I could sense others, crowding around us, crying out as they were pulled into the heart of this strange ship.  
I saw myself repeated forever, along with Tony and Vaylin, but still only one Valkorion. This was his plan, to use us to connect himself to the endless. My own voice was whispering to me, a million subtle variations I could barely make out, telling me his plan.  
More importantly, why he would fail.  
I reached out to the daughter I had never had with a power I do not possess to get the ball rolling.  
***  
He recovered quickly, but these had already been more trouble than he had expected. It was time to end it.  
He used the excess regeneration energy to heal his cracked ribs and then blast Arcann, whatever he called himself here, away. He keyed in a sequence on the console, springing his trap. Senya fell to her knees, while Arcann was unable to continue his attack, their puny minds unable to handle the presence of their other selves.  
To his shock, though, Vaylin was still standing, her head tilted to one side, listening to voices he couldn’t hear. “What? How are you standing when they fall? You do not have the will!”  
She laughed, sounding like the broken mind he expected, then waved vaguely at the air, while stepping towards him. “What, did you think this would cause me pain? Perhaps drive me mad? All the knowledge in the universe and you are still so stupid. You made me mad, already, ‘Father’. I’m used to it.” When she was only a few feet away, she finished, “But I made myself free.”  
He expected her to lash out at him. He was ready. She could not use her strange powers as a weapon, only her fists and feet. Instead of striking at him, though, she slapped her hand down on the console, and lightning flared outward, not as a weapon, but as a power source.  
The core of the ship had been opened, part of his plan, scanning the multiverse for these three, pulling them to it, and soon it would stabilize and become a permanent flow of energy, costing their countless, meaningless, lives, fulfilling his destiny and his need for revenge in one stroke.  
It required an orderly flow, though, and somehow, she had thrown that into chaos. The console, the TARDIS, perhaps reality itself, seemed to explode.  
They swirled about him, infinite variations of his family, calling out to him. Some were dead, their spirits dragged back for this one pronouncement. Some still lived, and of those some were conquerors, some had turned aside from what he had tried to make them, others were simply insignificant.  
And, in all of those faces, all of those hateful glares, they rejected him.  
He had thought he controlled this body, after months of training himself, but these multitudes, pointing, accusing, hating, he could not stand. His own senses betrayed him, allowing him to feel their limitless pain.  
He tried to reach out, saying, “Please, Son, help me!”  
The one that had called itself Tony said, “You do not understand. There is no reality where I am your son.”  
The desiccated corpse of one of the Thexans, pulled here along with his brothers, dead in so many realities, said, “Indeed.”  
His daughter, this one powerless in every way that mattered to him, laughed and said, “Oh, ‘Father’, you’ve failed again. All the power and knowledge in the universe, and you still could not turn this into a victory.”  
Senya spoke last, not his, nor this pallid universe’s, but something more. More than he could comprehend. “You are one and want to be infinite. You cannot comprehend that you already are, as are we all. And that is why, inevitably, you fail. Goodbye, husband.”  
He screamed then. He knew there was no sound coming from him, that none of this had any reality. He could feel it, the universe turning, himself at its center. That was the truth. But here, there was a still greater truth, that even he was insignificant. However much power he gained, he was as nothing in what lay beyond.  
That was the wisdom of the Time Lords that he had rejected. That they recognized that they were so small, and that they accepted it.  
That was the truth of these iterations of his family, that as small as they were, they still mattered, even if only to each other.  
He was the great Valkorion, Vitiate, Tenebrae, and so many other names beside. He was the last of the Time Lords. Defier of fate, the dam that altered the river.  
He had rejected the finite, but could not tolerate the infinite.  
And that contradiction tore at him, pulled him rapidly apart, leaving nothing, eventually not even a memory.  
***  
They heard that rising, falling sound again, and with the lingering presence of their other selves, recognized that it was the sound of the TARDIS returning them to their proper places.  
They appeared in Tony’s office.  
Vaylin looked around and said, “Well, that was fun.”  
Senya replied, “Well, enjoy it while you can, dear. We won’t remember it for long.”  
Tony was surprised by this statement, and said, “Why do you say that, Mother?”  
“I don’t know how I know, but I don’t think any of this really happened. I can already feel it fading.”  
***  
The memories faded, and the journals were never penned. Strangely, there is still a copy of them in the Library, guarded forever by shadows.  
Otherwise, no trace exists.  
Elsewhere, at the starting point of these events, floated a blue box.  
They sat up. The regeneration had been particularly stressful this time, though not the worst ever. There was, though, only one thing that was important in this moment. And only one way to test it.  
A hand was lifted, there was a slight, sharp pain, and new eyes focused on what was held between two new fingers. And then a moment of exultation, after so many lives, so many bodies.  
“Yes! Finally a ginger!”


End file.
